1 Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an apparatus for the treatment of water. More specifically, this invention provides a convenient tank with a removable lid, a means to use prepackaged media pods for water treatment and a bypass line to selectively employ specific pods for treatment.
2. Description of Related Art
Existing water treatment systems used by the industry today incorporate multiple tanks as a standard practice when treating water for more than one constituent or water problem. Attempts to use a single tank result in multiple forms of media being placed in one tank that become thoroughly mixed. This is a problem due to the fact that some media have different life spans and densities. At times, particular media need to precede other media in order to perform efficiently and most effectively as the water flows through the treatment process. However, flow and gravity acting upon the media with various densities result with media migrating to other strata.
Manufacturers have produced tanks with a removable lid allowing for the insertion of pod packets. The packets generally consist of a bag tied off at the top with the media located within.
For example, the prior art discloses a deionizing twin bed with a permeable container having an anionic exchanger bed and also have a permeable container having a cationic exchanger bed. However, problems associated with this reference include difficulty with container removal, improper seals between the container and the tank and limited access to the entire system during maintenance or troubleshooting.
The prior art also discloses a tank treatment assembly wherein treatment of the water is facilitated through a plurality of chambers all located within the tank or lid. This design is difficult to service. It is also not compatible with the treatment tanks currently in service.
A treatment tank has been disclosed with a tapered interior wall for receiving permeable containers. The permeable containers hold the media for treating the water. The tapered wall is used to create a seal between the containers and the wall through the use of gravity. However, this tank is difficult to service. The tapered wall also serves to pack the containers in place making removal by an operator difficult. Similarly, water flows randomly through these designs and can create channels. The channels create less resistance to the water increasing the flow rate but significantly lessen the effectiveness of the treatment by the media.
The need therefore exists for a device incorporating pods containing several media for the treatment of a fluid. The container or tank must be standard in the industry, easy to maintain and cost effective to produce. The tank must have a lid easily removable to remove and insert pods within. Also, the lid must be designed so that the industry standard valve may be used to attach the tank the water system. The lid must be flexible enough so that a monitoring unit may or may not be attached, depending on the resources of the operator. In addition, a by-pass line is preferred to blend water from an upper pod by passing lower pods if desired; therefore, changing the final product water for a specific customer, and to eliminate potential pressure build-ups or problems that may develop as well as to allow an operator to trouble shoot potential problem areas. Similarly, a drain valve located at the bottom of the tank to drain the system is necessary. The pods containing media must be interchangeable regardless of desnity, inexpensive, easy to service and maintain. The pods also need to have a means to control the direction of flow of the water to prevent the creation of channels in the pods.
It is therefore an advantage of the present invention to provide a unit for the treatment of a liquid substance. The main element of the invention comprising a tank wherein an operator has full access to the entire internal volume. Pressure that builds up within the tank can be relieved through a bleed valve and bypass line. The unit also provides filtration of the water through use of permeable forms of media. The tank allows a variety of media with varying densities to be strategically positioned in the flow pattern while preventing the migration of a media into another media during treatment. The media is easily extracted and replaced on an individual basis without have to intermingle with other medias. The entire unit is compatible with standard valves used in the industry thereby ensuring proper performance based on multiple media selection. The tank is constructed from a standard tank currently used in the industry.
Rather than require two or more tanks, additional electric and water to properly treat the water with multiple media the present invention incorporates multiple media treatment into one tank. The media pods can be removed and cleaned by hand should complications with flow and pressure arise. This is extremely beneficial for treatment systems used in a private well or remote location where services are performed by a third-party maintenance service.
These advantages and other novel features of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.